Kane Brown’s Success Helps Him Give Back to Causes He Cares About

For Kane Brown, the rental housing crisis, as well as issues of homelessness and poverty, are personal: As a child, his single-parent family struggled with poverty, and they often had to jump from house to house in order to afford rent. Now, Brown uses his platform as a successful country star to help make a change in the lives of others.

In September of 2017, Brown addressed the U.S. Senate at a congressional briefing organized to discuss the housing crisis: "When I was younger, my mom and I lived in a car because we didn't have anywhere else to go," Brown shared at the briefing, as reported by CMT. "After graduating from high school, even though I was working, I didn't have enough money to pay rent, so I stayed with my Nana."

During a recent press conference celebrating the success of his No. 1 hit single, "What Ifs," Brown reflected on how his platform has grown exponentially in the years since then.

"For a long time, I wasn't at a place where I felt like I had a platform where I could help people," he remembers. "Now that I can, I feel like the [opportunities] kind of come to me on their own."

In 2017, Brown also partnered with Make Room, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of the problem of skyrocketing rent costs without a corresponding uptick in wages. The artist says he "loved" working with the organization and would happily do so again "if things come to me that I fit with."

Earlier this year, Brown partnered with State Farm for the Neighborhood of Good project, to facilitate volunteerism within communities. The project is "kind of like Make Room," Brown explains, "but they have places in New York that you can go to and find out more about anything you might want to volunteer for -- things you might not even think you could be able to do."